BBCSH 'One More Mystery'
by tigersilver
Summary: Sherlock has something new to say to John when he returns after settling the last of Moriarty's mess. And it's a mystery, actually, deducing where these astounding words have sprung from. Schmoop of the highest imaginable degree, this.


BBCSH 'One More Mystery'

Author: tigersilver

Rating: PG-13

Word Count: 1000

Summary: Post-Return schmoop of the most highest degree. Sherlock has something new to say to John after he returns. John feels it is very mysterious, indeed, when he hears it. Again and again and again, that is.

* * *

When Sherlock Holmes returns from the sorting the last of Moriarty, he seems to have suffered a sea-change; John Watson's perplexed.

"It's because I'm home, John," he says (and then befuddles John further by adding "Because _you_ are my home, John, of course.")

That's the thing, the very odd thing, is that Sherlock now says…things. "I love you, John, my John," he says, again and again, and at the strangest of times, and he appears to find nothing at all amiss with it, him saying. John sometimes wonders if he's experienced some kind of mysterious personality transplant or perhaps suffered one blow too many to the temple.

"I love you, John, I love you," though, undeniably in his voice, from his lips, and the raw honesty in his eyes is intense. Sometimes John blinks open his own eyes after sleep and thinks he's awoken in bed with a teenager; Sherlock's face will have dropped twenty years and he'll be watching John with a look of wonder, one large long-fingered hand spread out as wide as it can to reach all across the centre of John's naked chest. The tips of his fingers will be trembling.

"I love you, my John."

"Just, Sherlock," John can't stop himself occasionally; he blurts it, "just…"

"Something wrong, John?" Sherlock will ask, perhaps having maybe just that moment laid down his pipette and whatnot and twisted about to give John's waist a fierce loving hug as he squeezes by on his way to the kitchen counter, toting the shopping. Or he'll duck his nose into the warm space under John's earlobe and breathe the query straight into John's ear, grabbing at John's arse on the sly. "…John?"

"Nothing," John's quick to reply, as it's too hard to bear, the flicker, the incipient downward turn of those lips, the budding frown he can see coming if he doesn't put a stop to it immediately. "Nothing…just nothing, Sherlock."

Odder yet is that Sherlock accepts that spot of flimsiness, and doesn't press John to explain, doesn't deduce an answer for himself. He only makes sure to edge himself closer at crime scenes and when walking, and he'll take John's hand up in his own without warning, and he'll cup the sides of John's face sometimes, on a cold day, with those cool leather gloves of his, stare down at John and look shatteringly happy.

"Oh, John, I do love you, really I do," Sherlock announces, when John hands him a clipping on a possible case he's missed in his morning frenzy through the papers. "You're amazing to me, John," he'll remark. "In my view you are brilliant," when John parses together some intricately connected clues all on his own time and almost nearly matches up to Sherlock's own results. "I love you."

"I could kiss you, John," he'll whisper, and then does precisely that, crowding John against the corner of the sofa or against the coffee bar counter at Speedy's, or any old wherever he pleases. "I need you now," he'll rumble, so low, and John will find himself salivating, and swallowing a clog in his throat, and nodding. For he cannot say 'No, Sherlock'—no, never.

"This is John; he's with me," Sherlock informs the reporters, the clients, the countryside coppers who host them on farther-ranging cases. "He's a medical man, ex-Army, an author, my esteemed colleague," and John hears instead the words: "This is John, and I love him, and you'll not harm him nor take him for granted, nor assume he's an idiot, ever."

"I love you, John," Sherlock repeats it, though repetition is supposed to be tedious and dull; still, he doesn't cease. "Will you accompany me?" he'll ask, and he'll even wait with some degree of patience while John gulps his tea down and locates his shoes. "I need you with me, John. Not going alone."

"John."

At times it's only the one single word, too. But the sentiment is crystal clear. "John."

He's not changed so much in other ways, Sherlock. If he had, John might've been forced to consult with Mycroft. He only just says it again and again, and at times it's light and teasing, and at times those three little words contain the weight of a bludgeon and bowl John right over. "I love you, do you know?" he'll enquire casually, and drop a bag of minced frozen baby mice into John's waiting hands instead of the packet of regular old edible-for-humans mince John had been expecting. "So much so, John."

It really is the most mysterious alteration in attitude John could ever expect from his consulting detective, these newfound and purely fearless expressions of care, of adoration…of love. The physical, certainly, but this? Using these words aloud, and often, and them completely banal ones, really? Sherlock—really?

"John, John, have I told you recently? John, I love you. My John."

John rarely ever has the opportunity to reply, though. Either his face is smashed into the smooth lapel of a wool coat or stuffed into the billowy cashmere of the scarf in a strangle-wrap about the throat from whence those words issued, or he's been hugged to the point of asphyxiation by two long lean arms and simply cannot manage. Or there's that guilty set of lips already attaching themselves to his with a passion and his tongue's been kidnapped—or he's busy running, or shooting, or shagging, and can't properly find the perfect moment to say.

"Sherlock, I love you. I love you, Sherlock."

They don't come easy to John, phrases like that, words of that calibre, strung simply together in a line. But Sherlock, he's been through a sea-change somewhere along the way, and he's no longer as demanding or as picky, at least regarding some aspects. He's different again, altered in some fundamental manner, and it's always startling for John when he notices. "I love you. John, I love you! Don't forget it!" Sherlock will simply exclaim, and go on with it, whatever he's about, as if he's already hearing John's voice in glad reply despite what's really a little gap of dead silence.

It's a bit of mystery, and one John will perhaps never quite understand the reasons for nor be told the origins of, but he's also content to let it be.

"John, I love you," Sherlock says to him. Every day, and sometimes thrice or more an hour. "I love you, love you, love you, my John. More than the world, or my life, or a murder, more than anything imaginable—I love you, John."

More than content to let it be, is John Watson.

_Fin_


End file.
